Genco Shipping & Trading Limited (NYSE:GNK) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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John Wobensmith: So we are continuing to look at fleet renewal, and we’ve identified our 55s, which eventually we will sell and redeploy that capital into newer assets. So none of that has really changed. It’s about finding the right transaction. The good news is, as I said before, asset values have held up, which you just reiterated, which is interesting, considering where our freight rates are. I think that’s a positive. And there are certainly transactions being done, particularly in the sort of 10-year old Capesize sector, and we’ve seen those prices hold up pretty well. But just going back to your question, right now, it’s more of a focus on fleet renewal, improving — continuing to improve the age of the fleet and improving fuel efficiency of the overall fleet.

Liam Burke: Got it. And last year, obviously, you had COVID-related and crew costs in your operating expenses. It does look like they’re repeating OpEx per vessel way down. Is there anything else in there besides just not repeating the onetime costs related to COVID and Cruise?

John Wobensmith: No. I mean — and as you said — yes, unfortunately, COVID costs are behind us at this point. We did a little better than budget for this quarter. I think we expect a little higher OpEx in the third quarter, which is purely timing. And on the purchasing side, you really have to look at OpEx over a 12-month period to get the full number versus budget. But we’ve put out guidance for the third quarter on the OpEx. And like I said, it’s just slightly higher, but we plan on being on budget for the entire year.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Next question comes from Greg Lewis at BTIG.

Gregory Lewis: John, I was hoping you could talk a little bit about how you’re thinking about your chartered-in fleet, just looking at kind of scaled down a little bit this last quarter versus where it’s been over the last year. Clearly, the spot market is down. It seems like there’s some — a little bit of softness in the charter on the time charter market. Kind of as the market unfolds, clearly, you’re still bullish on the overall market, so are we. Is there kind of a disconnect between where potential charter out owners are and where chartering in is right now just given the fact that spot is where it is versus maybe where it will be in 3 or 6 months? And really just kind of curious as we sit here today versus maybe where we are in 6 to 9 months, and this will help us with modeling also. Any kind of view on how you think the chartered-in portfolio looks?

John Wobensmith: Yes. So what has happened there is there’s been a shift in the market in terms of people booking — willing to book forward cargoes. That has tailed off. Again, expect it to be short term in nature, but it’s for a variety of reasons. So it’s because commodity prices have come down. It’s — interest rates are up, so it’s more expensive to carry inventory. So I think people right now or at least right now, for the most part, are doing transactions that are more spot-related and current. So that’s why you don’t see us doing as many chartered-in opportunities with cargo. But again, I expect all that to settle in once everyone gets used to the higher interest rate environment, commodity prices should recover. And you’ll see us back to the levels we’ve done historically.

Again, I think it’s a short-term phenomenon. But if you — again, if you look at our numbers, we continue to create arbitrage opportunities irrespective because we continue to outperform the benchmarks by quite a bit.

Operator: As there are no further questions at this time, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating, and we ask that you please disconnect your lines.

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